Notice: I don’t own a lot of things that cost a lot, so the things that I am choosing to take are those things are irreplaceable.

Lego Volkswagen Bug – I love bugs, and my family spent hours putting this bug together. It represents one of our few family endeavors—a lot of time, and a lot of laughs.

PCCS Tie – this is my staff tie from girl scout camp. Each swap has a story, and it in itself is a story, of all my time at girl scout camps, and my future with scouting.

Flashdrive – this has all my digital work from elementary school through 9th grade.

Laptop – my life.

Powerpuff blanket – the only relic of my childhood that I still use. I got this blanket when I was four, and I’ve yet to find a better blanket.

Steampunk Cross – the only piece of jewelry that I wear regularly.

Metal Bible – I am taking this bible to the grave with me. It rides in my backpack every day, and has my note from the beginning of 7th grade through now clogging the margins.

Star Trek the Original Series on DVD – who would take this?

Passport

This is not shown here, because I couldn’t take it off the wall to fit it into the picture and I didn’t want to take the picture on my desk (over which this poster hangs) because I just cleaned my room…and did not want to dismantle my newly organized desk. But I have this poster hanging in my room, and it is AWESOME. I don’t think that there are many in the world…Carly Pate and I were walking through the State Library, and I saw it and knew it had to be mine. So I made my first purchase on Ebay and died and went to nerd heaven. This thing is coming to college with me.

1. The first 3 paragraphs on page 64 list some ways in which we reason. Think about your day (or yesterday). Using the terms as a guide, try to write down all the specific ways you used reasoning. For example, if you worked on some math problems for an hour or decided which sandwich to buy…perhaps you predicted the surf conditions before you headed out!

We consider abstract ideas
We make decisions, set goals, and control our actions to get there.
We organize, research, plan,
We select
compile
include
exclude
compare
contrast
calculate
hypotheses and test them
seek evidence and evaluate
analyze the results and seek the conclusion
induce
deduce
generalize
specify
we judge and argue

I used reasoning when arguing with friend about pot use and driving–my friend asserted that people are safer drivers when stoned, and said that numerous studies supported this claim. I said that was illogical because pot slows the reflexes, relaxes attention…we looked it up, and I was right.
Arguing about % of the population as homosexual–a friend said 1 in 10 people were homosexual, I disagreed, saying it was more like 1-2 percent. The answer is complicated, but 2% is a pretty good estimate.
I did my math homework, trig requires reasoning to get from one step to the next.
I was arguing with Mother about the value of certain majors in college, namely art history and linguistics. We didn’t have the internet (to google jobs) so I only had The Archives (where I store my knowledge). I reasoned things like museum curators would need art history.
LINGUISTICS TANGENT:
What Can Linguists Do?
Build databases to help e-commerce customers navigate the Internet
Build natural language processing systems to improve customer service of Internet businesses
Develop grammar checking functions for software
Improve the quality of automated translation on the Internet
Work for natural language processing firms
Work on search engines, speech recognition, and artificial intelligence
Work with language consultants to document, evaluate, and preserve languages
Develop curricula and materials for education
Work for the F.B.I., police departments, or the foreign service
Work for product-naming companies
Careers for Linguists
Some of the occupations shown below require additional training:
Computational linguists (combines linguistics and computer science and overlaps with the field of artificial intelligence)
Lexicographers (compile, write and edit dictionaries)
Vocabulary resource managers
Speech therapists
Translators
Intelligence analysts or code breakers for the U.S. government
Forensic linguistics (analyzing linguistic aspects of evidence, legal texts, voice identification issues, and other topics)
English as a Second Language teachers
College linguistics instructors
(SOURCE: OMNIGLOT)
Mother and I also had a discussion about the value of non-practical majors, or majors without apparent practical value (like the aforementioned art history). Then we got into history, and I ranted about how in high school and college we are encouraged to love to learn for the sake of learning, and we are taught that knowledge is in itself an end while in society, we are taught that we need to be useful and practical or we are cast aside. I got rather wistful: homesick for a place where knowledge simply for the sake of knowing was valued, Classical Greece. That, of course, led to me talking about what enabled wealthy men to sit around talking about abstract things: slavery and domesticated women.
I needed to, in drama class, critically evaluate the play “Exotic Flowers” and the elements that make a short play appealing and the differences between a short play and a long play etc.
I needed to vote for student council reps.

3. Think of a GENERALIZATION you have made or heard recently (see pg. 68). Can you describe some examples of harmful generalizations?

Here are two generalizations: All Hawaii politicians are idiots (-Dad); All liberals are idiots (-Dad).

Some harmful generalizations:
Sexism
Classism
Racism
All Muslims are radicalists
All Christians are judgemental
Pretty people are smarter
Blondes are stupid

5. Make up your own variables (actual words) for P and Q in the DEDUCTIVE REASONING exercise on page 70. (just try this out so it makes more sense) – I tried “Swedes” and “blonde”.

1. All teenagers are liberal. Negation: some teenagers are not liberal
2. All teenagers are liberal. Negation:no teenagers are liberal
3. Some teenagers are liberal. Negation: some teenagers are not liberal
4. No teenagers are liberal. Negation:some teenagers are liberal
5. All teenagers are liberal. Negation:some teenagers are liberal

6. What are the 2 KEY ASSERTIONS of deductive reasoning? What is the MAJOR DISTINCTION between “Validity” and “Truth”?
Validity relies on the form which a line of thought, a chain of reason, takes. It does not care about the content of the argument. Truth is about the content of a statement.
Two assertions of deductive reasoning are:
An argument is valid and all premises are true therefore the conclusion is true.
Given that the conclusion of an argument is false, either the argument is invalid or one or more of the premises is false.

· Is the major premise of the argument true? How could one find out?
Major premise: Yes, it is true that software can detect signs of editing.
Minor premise 1: This is not true. There are many reasons for editing, or the appearace of editing: scanner optical character recognition (OCR) software attempts to translate characters or words in a photograph into text. :ayers cited by the doubters shows that software at work – and nothing more
Minor premise 2: “The doubters have latched onto the idea that Adobe Illustrator — the premier program for computer graphic artists — “reveals” evidence of document manipulation in the Obama birth certificate. They note Illustrator reveals nine separate layers of the document, and claim it’s “proof” the file has been altered.” (from http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2011/04/29/expert-says-obamas-birth-certificate-legit/)

Mother doesn’t think that she uses inductive reasoning.
Dad doesn’t think that he uses inductive reasoning.
I don’t think I use inductive reasoning.
Ergo, no one uses inductive reasoning.

xD
(disclaimer: I am aware that I use inductive reasoning, that premise was for the sake of argument).

12. In the last paragraph of page 77, the author states “Much of our knowledge about the natural sciences is based on generalizations backed by repeated observation of phenomena”. Can you provide an example of CLASSICAL induction from your own science courses (group 4)?

Bateria have DNA
Archaea have DNA
Protists have DNA
Animals have DNA
Plants have DNA
Fungi have DNA

15. Provide an example of ANALOGICAL REASONING from your own life. How likely are you to trust your own results, on a scale of 0 to 10?

67 of my facebook friends like Starbucks, so facebook continually suggests that I ought to like Starbucks because all of us are friends, so we must like the same things.

17. Curate a TED TALK (http://www.ted.com ) that highlights the use of CREATIVE REASONING (pg. 82), post and provide a brief overview. (***you might want to check out TED MED at the top)

18. Look around your bedroom OR your laptop: In what ways do you classify things? What is the method to your madness? Describe some common classifications in the AOKS (Areas of Knowledge, i.e. all your courses). Can you think of an example where technology or advances in science/ newfound “knowledge” has changed the classification system?

My laptop is organized by subject, then project/unit for my classes, by story (I have a lot of background documents) for my short stories (though all the completed works migrate to one folder), and my FUN or SERIOUS for photos.
In biology we classify living beings by kingdom, phylum, class, order, genus species…
In English we classify Shakespeare’s plays as histories, comedies, and tragedies.
In TOK we classify ways of knowing.
In theatre we classify aspects of a production.

21. What stereotypes, generalizations, or prejudices do you think you have?

I am prejudice against people with strong political opinions.
I lose respect for people if they communicate in text speak. A lack of proper speech is a sign of a lack of dedication to education and a sign of a lack of appreciation for language.
I lose respect for people who make blatantly sweeping assumptions–see the assumption listed in the last sentence.

22. TRY IT OUT: Take Harvard’s Race or Gender TEST:
“Your data suggest little to no automatic preference between African American and European American.”

I am very happy with the results. I don’t think I need think more about them. I accepted the tests results, but I’m not sure about the validity simply because I figured out very quickly how the test worked, and I hope that I didn’t subconsciously change my results. Generally, poverty and crime are linked, as are minorities and poverty, so minorities get a bad rap.

We could combat racism by identifying assumptions and logically writing out arguments before proving them invalid or showing one or more of the premises to be incorrect. It is very hard to combat something, generally, without identifying it first. We might want to identify problem assumptions then attempt to correct them.

Rape Victims — This is discussed more in the articles below, but have you ever heard someone in relation to rape say that the victim was “asking for it” or heard a victim blame him/herself for the rape? The just world fallacy explains this, in part: people blame the victim because we have the psychological urge to convince ourselves that the world we live in is orderly and that we have the power to, by our actions, change the outcome of our lives. While this is partially true, it is only true to a certain degree and, like the fundamental attribution error, the just world fallacy skews my ability to properly judge the world around me. However, for the record, I have never heard of a rape or burglary and considered it in any way the victim’s fault. Yes, it is stupid to, say, walk alone in a dark ally at night in a mini skirt and stilettos, but that does not make rape any less the perpetrator’s doing.

Karma — The Just World Fallacy actually fits in very well with the idea of karma- A summary of this theistic view of karma is expressed by the following: “God does not make one suffer for no reason nor does He make one happy for no reason. God is very fair and gives you exactly what you deserve.” Karma is not punishment or retribution but simply an extended expression or consequence of natural acts. (Thank you, Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karma#Hinduism)

C. Connections to Literature:

Book of Job—Job’s friends maintain that God is punishing Job for his sins, and that his misfortune was brought upon himself. In reality, this is not the case.

Book of Job, Chapter 22:Then Eliphaz the Temanite replied:

2 “Can a man be of benefit to God?
Can even a wise person benefit him?
3 What pleasure would it give the Almighty if you were righteous?
What would he gain if your ways were blameless?
4 “Is it for your piety that he rebukes you
and brings charges against you?
5 Is not your wickedness great?
Are not your sins endless?
6 You demanded security from your relatives for no reason;
you stripped people of their clothing, leaving them naked.
7 You gave no water to the weary
and you withheld food from the hungry,
8 though you were a powerful man, owning land—
an honored man, living on it.
9 And you sent widows away empty-handed
and broke the strength of the fatherless.
10 That is why snares are all around you,
why sudden peril terrifies you,

11 why it is so dark you cannot see,
and why a flood of water covers you

Job didn’t do any of the stuff that Eliphaz the Temanite is talking about. In fact, he was a righteous man.

2. Animal Farm

I just finished reading Animal Farm, so of course this reminded me of the way that the pigs treated the other animals. The pigs thought that they deserved the place of honor–the food, the drink, the beds, the advantage that they got when in reality they did not do anything to earn the natural advantage that they had.